Faith - Lesley Pearse [128]
But the loneliness was even worse than the lack of money. She didn’t want to have to admit to anyone that Stuart had left her, so she avoided the people on her stair, and the women at the school gates. She couldn’t even bring herself to write to Meggie and Ivy to tell them she was on her own again because she was so ashamed of herself.
She had thought of the other staff at the casino as friends, yet not one of them called round to see how she was. Not even Robbie.
While she would have slammed the door in his face if he’d appeared in the first week or two, at least it would have been evidence he did really care about her. Now it looked as if he’d just used her, and all that talk of helping her get a better job was just a ploy to manipulate her.
One afternoon right at the end of February, someone knocked on the flat door. It was a freezing cold day and Laura was sitting on the settee wrapped up in a blanket. She thought it was a neighbour from the stair, as the bell down on the street door hadn’t rung.
Her first thought when she opened the door and found Robbie there was horror that he should see her in jeans, with no makeup and her hair like rats’ tails.
‘Hello, Laura,’ he said, grinning broadly.
‘You took your time,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’d given you up as a bad job.’
‘I’d have been round weeks ago if you’d phoned me at the casino or at least left a message for me,’ he said with a shrug. ‘All I got told was that you’d left. No reason was given. I thought perhaps Stuart had made you give up the job, and I didn’t attempt to try and find you in case it made things worse. By the time I got to hear on the grapevine that he’d gone to London, they’d removed your details from the staff register so I couldn’t find out your address. Did he leave because he saw you with me?’
She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, and she felt he meant it. ‘Can I come in for a minute? We can’t talk out here.’
‘Okay,’ she said listlessly. ‘But I’ve got to go and collect Barney soon.’
‘Strewth, it’s cold in here,’ he exclaimed as he followed her into the living room, but on seeing her embarrassment he looked crestfallen. ‘Oh, Laura, things are that bad, eh? You haven’t any money for the fire?’
His sympathetic tone broke down her reserve and she couldn’t hold back her tears. He put his arms around her and rocked her against his shoulder. ‘Tell me all about it, babe,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry I made so much trouble for you.’
That day he seemed like an answer to a prayer. He fed coins into the gas and electric meters, he made her a cup of tea and let her cry it all out. Later he drove her round to the school to pick up Barney and on the way back he stopped at the shops and bought a huge bag of groceries.
‘I’m going to cook a meal for you tonight,’ he said. ‘You can just sit down with Barney by the fire.’
She would never have thought a man from the gambling world could be so domesticated, or so kind. Along with making a first-class spaghetti bolognese he helped Barney build a car out of Lego, and then had a game of Snakes and Ladders with him.
Laura was embarrassed by how rough she looked, but when she blurted this out, he just smiled. ‘You’d look beautiful if you were in greasy overalls,’ he said. ‘I like to think we were friends, and that we can be that again. Friends don’t have to dress up for one another.’
After Barney went to bed they talked. She was blunt, admitting she’d made a serious mistake in going to bed with him, and that she loved Stuart. She expected Robbie to look insulted, but he patted her cheek affectionately and said he understood.
‘I stand by what I told you before,’ he went on. ‘I do want you, Laura, but if all you want is a friend, that’s okay with me.’
He was practical too. He pointed out that if she continued living on Social Security then they would have to force her to claim maintenance from her husband. ‘You’ll be on